


home is wherever i'm with you

by peppermintcas



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 10:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7637272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintcas/pseuds/peppermintcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's Hikaru at home. On the Enterprise, at Starfleet, he's Sulu or Mr. Sulu or <i>sir</i>, depending on rank and degree of familiarity, but when he's home – at their dinner table, playing with Demora, in Ben's arms - he's just Hikaru. He has never felt anything more freeing than this, the feeling of loving and being loved, being part of a family, a husband, a father.</p><p>He wants, helplessly, to be allowed to stay for longer than the meager eighteen months they've been given.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is wherever i'm with you

**Author's Note:**

> i'm deeply grateful to star trek: beyond for a) making hikaru sulu gay, married, and a father and b) pairing him with nyota uhura, my Fave, my one and only, the only other character of color in the franchise. whenever they showed up i slapped at the arm of whoever was sitting next to me. it was fucking great.

"How long has it been?" Hikaru asks softly, tracing a hand down Ben's cheek. "Two years? Three?"

"Two, I think," Ben says. "I was keeping count. Counting off months."

They're in bed. They've had this home in Yorktown for a couple of years now, ever since Ben and Demora moved here to be closer to deep space: luckily, it wasn't damaged in the attack.  _Opposite side of the port_ , Ben had said, a little shakily, still recovering. Demora had been gripping their hands like a lifeline.  _Thank god._

Hikaru hasn't been here for so long that it hurts. The last time he was here, semi-permanently – god, it probably was two years ago, right before he accepted the Enterprise commission. "I'm home now," he whispers. Ben smooths his hair back and he closes his eyes gratefully, thankful for the anchoring touch. "That's all that matters."

/

" _Fuck!_ " Sulu yells.

People turn to look. Uhura frowns at him. "Composure, Mr. Sulu."

"Fuck," Sulu says, again. "Yeah. Sorry. I know." He slumps down onto the rocky ground, his back scraping against the fence; he rubs a hand over his face. Jesus. They're going to attack  _Yorktown_ , and he's sitting in a damn prison camp and he can't do a thing about it.

Uhura slides down beside him, careful with her skirt. Her motions are precise, conserved: she thinks out everything before she does it. It's what makes her so incredibly useful on the bridge. "Your family," she says. "It's your family, isn't it? Your husband and daughter."

"Yes," Sulu says tiredly. He needs to get out of this place - he'll fight his way out all the way across space if he has to, he doesn't care, he just wants to make sure they're  _safe_. For a moment, he entertains the possibility - kicking the guard in the back, taking his key, escaping through a side tunnel.

They'd never make it. He exhales.

"We'll get out of here," Uhura is saying, as much to herself as to him. "Kirk will come and find us. We'll make it in time to save your family and the people of Yorktown. We have to. We've pulled off shit like this before. The odds aren't great, but they aren't impossible."

"I – " Sulu begins, and stops. His eyes prick, uselessly.  _Stupid_ , he chides himself,  _how will that help you or any of the crew, how will that help you escape_  - "I hope so," he says, finally. "I really, really hope so."

/

He's Hikaru at home. On the Enterprise, at Starfleet, he's Sulu or Mr. Sulu or _sir_ , depending on rank and degree of familiarity, but when he's home – at their dinner table, playing with Demora, in Ben's arms - he's just Hikaru. He has never felt anything more freeing than this, the feeling of loving and being loved, being part of a family, a husband, a father.

He wants, helplessly, to be allowed to stay for longer than the meager eighteen months they've been given.

 _Hikaru_ , Ben says breathlessly, the first time he's said it like that in a long time, arching under his hands, and he wants and he wants and he wants.

/

Uhura is at his side first after Krall leaves. He's flat on his back, a less dignified position than he'd like, gasping for air. She has to kneel down to reach him. "I've got you," she murmurs, cradling his head. "Syl's alright. Krall's left. Can you stand?"

"I think so," Sulu croaks, and winces at how bad his voice sounds. He clears his throat. "Help me up?"

Uhura takes him by the elbow and he staggers to his feet. He takes a moment to steady himself, to find his balance - 

 - and then he turns and dry-heaves into the ditch they've dug for waste.

"Oh, god," Uhura says desperately.

"No, no no no," Sulu says, as reassuringly as he can, and straightens up. "It was an - interesting experience, that's all. I'm fine," he adds to the blue-shirted woman who has come rushing up. "I'm just - finding my sea legs. So to speak."

Uhura releases his arm, and seems satisfied when he remains standing. "What the hell do we do now?" she asks.

"Hope Kirk gets here soon," Sulu says grimly.

/

He's holding Demora on his hip, picking out yams for dinner, Ben pushing the shopping cart and humming an aimless tune at his side. He scoops up a yam, holds it out. "This one," he says to Demora, who takes it with an air of ceremony and drops it in the bag in the cart. It's so -  _ordinary_. He half-expects hostile alien soldiers to drop from the sky, right into the grocery store.

Demora points. "That one?"

Hikaru hands it over to her. "What do you think?"

She considers, her eyes narrowed. "No," she decides, finally, and leans over to place it back in the pile.

"Good choice," Hikaru advises sagely. "That one was squishy."

Ben is smiling at him, soft and fond and familiar, and he smiles back until Demora pokes his chest and tells him not to get distracted and he doesn't think he can do twelve more months of this without talking himself into staying, he really doesn't. "I love you," he blurts out, because it bears repeating.

"Love you too, papa," Demora says back, dutifully, and then, "Can you put me down I see my friend from school  _hi Janice!_ " 

This last bit is yelled into Hikaru's ear. He winces and puts her down, watches her bound down the aisle towards another little girl who's still clutching her mom's hand; the mother looks up, waves. Hikaru waves back and turns around and finds Ben gazing at him again. 

"Your face is going to get stuck like that," Hikaru tells him, amused.

"I don't care," Ben says easily, and leans down to kiss him.

/

"Is it wrong that I want to stay?" Hikaru asks Nyota.

They're having sort of a crew meetup, nine months into rebuilding and provisioning. Scotty and Keenser are fumbling with the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner; Spock and Kirk and Bones are tossing back shots, because apparently even Vulcans give in to peer pressure; Chekov is off telling more outrageous lies about Russia to a cute boy in a corner booth. Hikaru's missed them. More than he realized. 

"No," Nyota says, immediately. "No, of course not. Everyone has second thoughts sometime. Kirk did, just before this last mission."

"Wait," Hikaru says. "Wait, really?"

"He doesn't want to leave  _anymore_ ," Nyota says. "I don't think so, anyway. It was an existential crisis thing, he turned down the offer. The point is, you've got more ties than he does - of course you want to stay." She looks at him, raises her eyebrows. "Did you ask so that I'd talk you out of it, or...?"

"I – don’t know," Hikaru admits, and looks down at the table. "I still want to captain a ship someday. I want to finish our five year mission. I went to years of school for this, but - " He swallows. "I've gotten to see her grow in ways I haven't been able to for so long."

Nyota's eyes are soft; she tilts her glass towards him. "No one said it was gonna be easy."

"Sometimes I wish I didn't love the stars as much as I do," Hikaru mutters, and immediately feels like the pretentious protagonist in a cheesy indie Earth movie. 

Nyota laughs, holds up her glass in a wordless toast: Hikaru obligingly clinks their glasses together. She throws hers back and slides the empty glass across the counter. "Talk to Ben," she advises. "Communication and all that."

Hikaru downs his glass.

/

"They didn't want to move to Yorktown," Sulu says to her.

They're sitting against the fence, keeping watch. Not that it's much use, but they keep up the pretense so that the rest of the crew can sleep; Sulu looks out over the crowd of people now. Some are fidgeting, some are murmuring among themselves. A grim mood has settled. Another crew member's been taken. Sulu and Uhura know firsthand how that ends, and it agonizes them both that they're powerless to stop it; worse, they don't know how many more will disappear, screaming, before rescue arrives.

"Who, your family?" Uhura asks, shaking him from his thoughts.

Sulu nods. To her credit, Uhura only takes a second to see where his train of thought is headed; her brow furrows. “No," she says. "Sulu, it isn't your fault."

"If they'd just stayed on earth - "

"Then you wouldn't be able to see them on shore leave," Uhura says. "You just wanted to be close to your family."

Sulu closes his eyes.

/

"I love you," Hikaru says. "I love you and I want to stay but – ”

"Hikaru," Ben says, gently. "If I know anything about you, it's that you'll always be drawn to space."

"I feel like I'm not doing my part. You're here, taking care of Demora and being -  _endlessly_  supportive of my career, these long missions, everything that this job demands – ”

"I knew what I was getting into," Ben says. He takes Hikaru's face into his hands, brushes his thumb over his cheekbones. "Anyone who marries into Starfleet knows, and they cope with it. You know what," he says thoughtfully. "I bet thousands of couples go through this exact same struggle. There's probably a forum."

Hikaru laughs, helplessly genuine, forced out of his chest by a sudden surge of emotion. "I love you," he says, because it bears repeating, because it's true, because he's hopelessly in love and he wants Ben to hear it for the rest of his life. "Fuck, I love you."

"I know," Ben says, grinning, because he's a dork who watches old Earth movies and makes others watch them with him, just so he can make references. "I love you too," he adds, and then Hikaru can't stop himself from kissing him.

/

They're hurtling towards the ground, down to the unforgiving stone below, and all Sulu can think about is the sensation of - 

 - falling, falling hard, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands in Ben's hair and his head thrown back  _oh god he's never felt like this before_  - 

 - falling in love, the moment he sees her, kneeling in front of her and handing her a block and saying, though the lump in his throat, "Hi - i'm Hikaru, that's Ben - "

 - falling into bed in their new home in Yorktown, their legs tangled together and their hands clasped and Demora snuggling in between them, laughing because they're laughing, pointing up at the constellations projected on the ceiling with a nightlight holopad - "Daddy, that one's Korofen, I know that one he looks like a dragon - "

 - and they shoot upwards into the sky, and Sulu grits his teeth and shifts, instantly, into warp.

He is damn good at his job.

/

"Ms. Uhura," Sulu says, when he sees her in the terminal.

“Mr. Sulu.” She tilts her head, raises her eyebrows. “I see you made your choice.”

"I've got family up here, too," Sulu tells her.

She smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> i moved a lot of the sections around in this fic for the sake of ~flow~, so the chronology might be off lmao. sry.


End file.
